Correction for Janna's e-mail writing

Subject: Inquiry for English course.

Hello Mr. Jack,

Question about English course.

My name is Joana and I'm from Finland. I guess, you have not had students from Finland before. I have a few questions to ask regarding to the English course.

1. Do u offer English course for foreign student?
2. How many lesson per week?
3. Is there any extra activities after school?
4. How about trip?

Truthfully, I have a problem with English and really need your help in learning it. For your information, the problem started when I was in primary school. My parent always arguing and got divorce when I was a little baby. They decided that I should be adopted as they could not decide who should have custody of me. If I had been in their situation, probably I wouldn't have known either. The consequences of this problem has effected my study, especially English. So, I do appreciate if u can reply this email with the information that I looking for. 

Thank you.

Problem identified

1. Joana sending the message with greeting word in the subject line. That could come across as arrogant, or at the very least, thoughtless. 
2. Massage send are not clear, main purpose at the end of paragraph. Didn't help the reader to prioritize.
3. No proofreading. 
4. There are some privacy in the email.
5. Email are send with informal way.
6. Did not use standard capitalization and spelling.

Reflection

Based on the e-mail send by Joana to Mr. Jack, we find that she have difficulty in term on differentiate between formal and informal way on sending email. In the first sentence clearly stated that Joana is a foreign student from Finland and both of them never meet before. It is impossible for Joana to use the linguistic shortcuts. The linguistic shortcuts are generally signs of friendly intimacy, like sharing cold pizza with a family friend. If you tried to share that same cold pizza with a first date, or a visiting dignitary, you would give off the impression that you did not really care about the meeting. E-mail is not secure. Just as random pedestrians could easily reach into your mailbox and intercept the envelopes that you send and receive through the post office, a curious hacker, a malicious criminal, or the FBI can easily intercept your e-mail. In some companies, the e-mail administrator has the ability to read any and all e-mail messages (and may fire you if you write anything inappropriate).

Resources

• Alsop, Stewart. "My Rules of Polite Digital Communication." Fortune. 142.2 (10 July 2000): p 76. Online. Academic Search Elite. 9 October 2000.
• Cronin, Jennifer. "Netiquette, schmetiquette." Des Moines Business Record 16.24 (12 June 2000): p 11. Online. MasterFILE Premier. 9 October 2000.
• "Email Etiquette." I Will Follow Services. 1997.  <http://www.iwillfollow.com/emailetiquette.html>. 9 October 2000.
• Nucifora, Alf. "Use etiquette when messaging via email." Memphis Business Journal 21.51 (14 April 2000): p23. Online. MasterFILE Premier. 9 October 2000.  
• Thorton, Sam. "Rules and Regulations: Email Etiquette." 29 April 1998.  <http://www.lse.ac.uk/Depts/ITS/rules/email.htm>. 9 October 2000. 

E-mail.... Sample of right and wrong on writing email....

Write meaningful subject line.

Recipients scan the subject line in order to decide whether to open, forward, file, or trash a message. Remember -- your message is not the only one in your recipient's mailbox. Before you hit "send," take a moment to write a subject line that accurately describes the content.

Subject: [Blank]
Subject: "Important! Read Immediately!!"

Subject: "Quick question."

Subject: "Follow-up about Friday"

Subject: "That file you requested."

Subject: "10 confirmed for Friday... will we need a   larger room?" 

 Focus on a clear message, helping the reader to prioritize.

Subject: Denver trip report.
----
When I arrived at the Denver meeting, Bill and Wilma were already there, though I don't think Frank knew about the staff change. The first report went well, even though Christina was off her form, and the questions were a little off-the wall. [More and more details, working chronologically through the event.] So by the end of the afternoon, I was really wondering whether whole pitch is off. Maybe we should focus as much on the environmental benefits as the social ones. Let me know if you want me to pull some figures for you -- I think you'll like it. The evening session was more of the same, though by this time...

Subject: New pitch idea from Denver: focus on environmental benefits?
-----
I had an idea while I was in Denver. Christina got some unexpected questions about the environment. Do you want me to pull some figures so we can consider revising the pitch to emphasize the environmental impact?

When I first got to Denver, Bill and Wilma were already there, though I don't think Frank knew about the staff change...

Subject: New pitch idea from Denver: focus on environmental benefits?
-----
Question about New Pitch

I had an idea while I was in Denver. This message includes my full report, but I wanted to start off by noting that Christina got some unexpected questions about the environment. Do you want me to pull some figures so we can consider revising the pitch to emphasize the environmental impact?

Trip Report

When I first got to Denver, Bill and Wilma were already there, though I don't think Frank knew about the staff change...

 Avoid attachments.

To: All 1000 Employees
From: Eager Edgar
Subject: A helpful book everyone should read
--------
Hello, everyone. I've attached a PDF that I think you'll all find very useful. This is the third time I sent it the file -- the version I sent yesterday had a typo on page 207, so I've sent the whole thing again. Since some of you noted that the large file size makes it a bit awkward, I've also attached each chapter as a separate document. Let me know what you think!

Attachments:

• Big Honking File.pdf (356MB)
• BHF Cover.pdf (25MB)
• BHF Chapter 1.pdf (35MB)
• BHF Chapter 2.pdf (27MB)
• [... ]

To: Bessie Professional
From: Morris Ponsybil
Subject: E-mail tips -- a subject for an office workshop?
--------
Bessie, I came across a book that has lots of tips on streamlining professional communications. Has anyone volunteered to present at the office workshop next month? Let me know if you'd like me to run a little seminar (20 minutes?) on using e-mail effectively.

Below, I'll paste the table of contents from the book. Let me know if you want me send you the whole thing as a PDF.

Table of Contents

1. Write a meaningful subject line.
2. Keep the message focused and readable. 
3. Avoid attachments. 
4. [...]

Be kind. Don't flame.

@!$% &*@!! &(*!

From: Clair Haddad
To: Ann O. Ying
Subject: Re: Ongoing Problems with Project

I'm not sure how to respond, since at the meeting last week you told Sue that you didn't need any extra training, so I canceled Wednesday's workshop. I can CC Sue in on this thread if you like, since she's the one who will have to approve the budget if we reschedule it.

Meanwhile, I can loan you my copies of the manual, or we can look into shifting the work to someone else. Let me know what you'd like me to do next.

---Original Message --
From: Ann O. Ying

I tried all morning to get in touch with you. Couldn't you find a few minutes in between meetings to check your messages? I'm having a rough time on this project, and I'm sorry if this is last-minute, but I've never done this before and I think the least you could do is take some time to explain it again.

Sample of our Formal Letter for the Academia Week Event

Dynaprocom Group

Institute of Product Design and Manufacturing

University Kuala Lumpur

Jalan Shamelin Perkasa 9/8, Shamelin Perkasa

Kuala Lumpur

03-42563547

February 10, 2011

Head of section

Tooling Department

Possehl Electronic Sdn. Bhd

Lot. 112, Batu Berendam

162537, Melaka

Dear Sir/Madam

Tool And Die Equipment For Exhibition. 

We are organizing an exhibition for Academia Week at University Kuala Lumpur (IPROM) that will be held on 14-16 of March .In this exhibition, we would like to show some tools that are related to Tool and Die industry. 

This exhibition will give knowledge and exposure to students in tool and die manufacturing. Therefore, we would like to get your support in having two single Die and two progressive Die to be displayed in the exhibition. We believe this is an opportunity for your company to display some of your manufacturing technology for students learning purposes. We would be grateful if you let us to interview with some of your specialist in Tool and Die.

We will highly appreciate if you can support us and help to improve level of the exhibition. We would be interested in speaking with you to discuss this matter.

Sincerely yours,

Dynaprocom Group

Writing a Formal Letter.

Tips on writing a Formal Letter Format

Before decide to write a formal letter, it is better to identify the format of formal letter. It will be a good idea to gather some crucial information on the things that you have to keep in mind while writing formal letter. Here, I stated some important tips on how to write a formal letter.

• Begin the letter with the name, address and other contact detailed of the sender. this also can be avoid, if the letter is typed on the letterhead. Don't forget to mention the date on which the letter is written.
• Mention the recipient's name and full address 4-6 line after the date.
• Begin the letter with salutation. Greeting word such as Dear Mrs/Mr. and the full name. If you didn't know the person name, it would be best to begin with "To whom it may concern".
• Write the appropriate subject line. mention the purpose of the letter in short. it should be in uppercase character.
• Followed with the body of content. It should be 2-3 paragraph depend on the matter of the content. In the introduction talk about the purpose of the letter in short. Then followed by the detail.
• End the letter with complimentary close.some of formal letter include Respectfully Yours, Sincerely.
• Leave 4 blank space for the sign after the complimentary close and then write your full name.

Agenda for Your Dream Team

Agenda can be build by asking three main questions;

• What do we need to do in the meeting to achieve our objective?
• What conversations will be important to the people who attend?
• What information will we need to begin?

Complete agenda contains;

• a list of attendees
• time of meeting and location
• background information
• a brief explanation of each item

In addition to what we read, item and goals need to put in a good agenda that goes beyond listing topics.

The best goals conclude:

• result-oriented
• specific
• realistic

In the end the writer point out about pre-meeting work. The great meeting happen when people have done all the necessary advance work.

POSTED BY: SHAHRIL

Memo to call for a meeting

To: All Dynaprocom group members.
From: Mr. Faiq- Secretary
Date: 28 January 2011
Re: Academia week; Segragation of duties.

I am writing the memo to call for a meeting to discuss the segregation of duties during the academis week event. For your informatio the duties that will be handed to all of members will help the group to manage the event succesfully and can reduce burden on managing the event. Therefore, several duties need to be discuss and agreed to be segregated.

Hopefully all member can attend the meeting since the attendence will be recorded and it is compulsary.

Once again thank you for your support.


Faiq Syukri
Secretary.

Virtual Meeting.

Nowadays meeting, technology has being introduced to ease the peoples to interact with each others even when the participants are from the other countries. This technology is known as virtual meeting and teleconferences are often use in a meeting that involve people from oversea or out side the countries. In this virtual meeting, participants can meet each other online and can share information on the web. But, virtual meeting have its own advantages and disadvantages. Virtual meetings allow people to interact far more quickly, easily and affordable. It also can reduce time in scheduling. But the disadvantages of virtual meeting can be found such as less access to one another nonverbal feedback. Some participants don’t have access to this technology or awkward when using it.

Hourly Cost For Meeting

Several studies and analysis which has been done by researcher shows from 90000 working days, 42 percent of time was spent in meetings. Businesspeople from United State spend and average of half their time attending meeting that take place between 11 to 20 million each days. 4.4 million hours per year are spend by a single corporation’s manager. A survey done by a marketing research company showed, a quarter of the meetings are pointless. This unproductive meeting cost about 37 million US dollar per year. Based on the statement from the Senior Consultant at American Consultant and Training, William R. Daniel state that, “meetings matter because that’s where an organization’s culture perpetuates itself”.

 

Types of Meeting

 

An effective meeting consists of several type of it. They are information-sharing meeting where people meet to exchange information regularly, problem-solving or decision-making meeting. This type of meeting usually is to determine the solution on certain issues or problems. And last but not least, the ritual activities where a social function is far more important than any definite task.

SETTING AN AGENDA

Meetings without agenda like a ship at sea without destination or compass. An effective meeting should have a well prepared and planned agenda. The agenda items can come from group leader, minute of meeting, group members or even a committee reports. An agenda should be written document that followed its format. This include,

• time,
• length, 
• location, 
• participant,
• background information, 
• item and goal.

In order to manage an effective meeting, some criteria should be considered. Time play an important role in it. It should be use efficiently, tone is constructive and an idea is good. All of this can be achieved from good communication skills. Usually a meeting should start with an objective of the meeting. Then followed by the effort to reach its goal and finally the stage is set for good teamwork.